New poll shows 5 point Tory lead

[LSdemocrat]

http://news.ft.com/cms/s/881d2f1e-a550-11d9-8616-00000e2511c8,dwp_uuid=543e48fa-8727-11d9-9e3c-00000e2511c8.html

"The survey of those who describe themselves as “absolutely certain” to vote puts Michael Howard's party on 39 per cent, Labour on 34 per cent, and Charles Kennedy and the Liberal Democrats on 21 per cent."

[muriel_volestrangler]

1. figures for the simple "which party do you support" question:

38% Labour
33% Conservative
23% Lib Dem

and these figures back up Nick Cohen's Sunday article on why the Tories are campaigning so negatively. It doesn't matter to them if they annoy loads of people and depress the turnout - their supporters are more likely to turn out anyway. They just need to make possible Labour supporters think "a pox on both your houses".

[tjwmason]

3. I don't think that we can just blame the Tories

The whole of British politics (including the supposedly 'nice' Liberal Democrats) now work on the basis of attacking opponents more than presenting positive ideas.

Labour supporters will not turn out because the party leader has been shown to be an opportunistic liar - not just because of Tory propaganda.

[tjwmason]

2. The turn-out will be crucial

Last time around Tories stayed at home in their thousands. They saw no leadership in the party, they knew that Blair was going to win again, they felt demoralised.

This time, thousands of Labour supporters are disillusioned with Blair; many of the Tories are reinvogorated.

I can imagine (though would not predict) a major upset based on a lower turn-out, with those who bother to vote being largely Tory. This is why the government has been pushing postal voting so hard (though that is now in a bit of a muddle).